Marketers keep replacing major martech apps, integration #1 factor for replacements

My mates at MarTech.org recently produced their most up-to-date Martech Substitution Survey 2022, in which entrepreneurs shared which apps they’ve replaced about the previous 18 months, what their principal enthusiasm was in accomplishing so, and what were their most critical variables in choosing the substitute solution.

Advertising automation (24%), CRM (23%), Website positioning (23%), e mail advertising and marketing (22%), and operate/project administration (19%) applications had been the most commonly changed.

As I highlighted in blue in the chart higher than, the #1 most typically cited issue in picking their replacement answer was integration abilities/open up API — selected by 56% respondents, up 13% factors from the same study in 2021.

It’s a major 5 concept of this decade in martech: platforms, networks & marketplaces.

Of study course, this is not to say that the other components — cost, assist, security, and many others. — weren’t significant much too. But the aspect that most entrepreneurs agreed on was integration. If it will not combine with the relaxation of the tech stack, every thing else is moot. It’s the tree that falls in the forest without any one around to hear it.

The next most frequent component was information centralization/info abilities (picked by 50% of respondents), which is intently tied to integration. Right after all, facts is the foundational layer of integrations.

Tied in second also with 50% was “ability to measure ROI” — which is going to be on the leading of everyone’s minds in our tighter economic system. But to evaluate ROI, you need to have the knowledge. And to get the data, you need to have integrations. These a few factors are certain jointly by atomic forces.

But what motivated entrepreneurs to search for out a substitution resolution in the very first put?

When wanting to exchange a commercial app (the study covers replacement of homegrown applications individually), the #1 inspiration was far better capabilities (53%). Of class, this helps make feeling. Entrepreneurs appear to martech to give them the capabilities necessary to conduct in regularly shifting and evolving marketplaces. What you can do matters.

Even so, I would have predicted the #2 determination to be cost — seeking an alternate option to decrease costs. That was the study final result in 2021.

But in 2022, superior/much easier integration was the second most common commitment (24%, up 5% points from 2021) to seek out a alternative application. Essentially, a motivation for superior integration brought on 1 out of each individual 4 martech app substitute jobs.

That is fairly extraordinary.

I have stated this numerous instances in advance of to martech merchandise teams: the market is talking to you with a terrific booming voice in the sky, “Treat integration as a first-course attribute!”

Progressively, the martech field — and the SaaS universe more broadly — have taken this to coronary heart. A new investigation report from Pandium on the State of Integrations and APIs at 400 SaaS Corporations demonstrates that 86% of the Top 100 SaaS businesses in the environment now have a community integration marketplace. (73% of them have an in-application market.)

That’s amazing and a sturdy testament to the great importance of app ecosystems for major SaaS companies.

But what’s even far more telling is that 31% of seed-phase SaaS startups now function a community integration marketplace much too. Almost 1 out 3 SaaS startups — which are particularly strapped for time and methods, forced to make incredibly tough choices about what to prioritize — have chosen to prioritize building both of those integrations and a market to make it quick for prospects to explore and use them.

It’s heartening to see martech consumers and sellers concur: integration is essential.

We even now have additional to go on this journey of martech platforms and ecosystems. But as an sector, at least’s we’re all marching in the very same route with a substantially much more seamlessly and powerfully integrated long term on the horizon in advance.